He ditched his opera dreams for choral ones, and has never looked back. Dr Michael Barrett-Berg may be leaving our shores for Australia, but he’ll always have a connection to UP.

It’s said that no one is indispensable, but the pending departure of choir conductor Dr Michael Barrett-Berg from the University of Pretoria (UP) at the end of March is a blow that will be hard to recover from. One hint of his value is that he’s been given a three-year contract as a research associate at the University.

“So I’ll still have my connection to UP,” he says.

Another sense of his worth is his activities over the past few weeks of his tenure: Dr Barrett-Berg is now on tour in the US with 80 students. They represent a UP asset, and one whose stature he has helped develop: the 57-year-old UP choir TUKS Camerata. Dr Barrett-Berg has been at the helm of TUKS Camerata for 12 years. Not only is he the choral director, he is also a senior lecturer in the School of the Arts. In fact, apart from a six-year interlude after his master’s degree, he’s been associated with UP ever since he matriculated from Pro Arte High School in Pretoria.

“I came to UP because of TUKS Camerata,” he says. “It also made financial sense, because we lived in Pretoria. I got a full scholarship to do my PhD at Florida State University, but then the job at UP arose at the same time, and I really was interested in doing that.”

Members of TUKS Camerata are all full-time UP students from various disciplines, including medicine, engineering, theology, law, education, economics, plant sciences and accounting. The choir tours nationally or internationally every three years, but the present tour is a particular highlight. TUKS Camerata was invited to perform as the headline act at the national conference of the American Choral Directors Association in Dallas, Texas in the US. The conference is so vast that the ensemble will be performing twice in the 2 200-seater Winspear Opera House to ensure that all the delegates can attend the event.

Their 45-minute programme consists entirely of South African music, “to celebrate our heritage”, Dr Barrett-Berg says. It ranges from African jazz and avant-garde classical music to modern Afrikaans and Zulu a cappella known as isicathamiya. The concert concludes with Dr Barrett-Berg’s ‘Inkosi Namandla’, an isiZulu arrangement of a Tswana hymn. He is a prolific composer and arranger, with 40 of his works having been published internationally.

Dr Barrett-Berg and a colleague set up a GoFundMe campaign to ensure that all choir members could participate in the tour. The campaign raised way more than the initial appeal: a whopping $33 000 (over R600 000).

“TUKS Camerata is very popular in America – 99% of the funding came from there,” Dr Barrett-Berg says. “We also got the funding because being the headline choir of the biggest choral conference in the world holds weight. People want to see this choir.”

TUKS Camerata also contributed R1.8 million from its own funds towards the tour, which shows that it is not only popular but also a financial success. This is spelt out in its GoFundMe appeal, which states that it has raised R3 million through concerts, corporate events, CD sales and online content over the past three years.

“We do about 19 concerts throughout the year,” Dr Barrett-Berg says.

This is on top of performances at conferences and churches, and fundraisers for the elderly as well as children’s homes.

Dr Barrett-Berg was an ideal fit to lead TUKS Camerata. Fond of singing even before he started school, he joined the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir, or “Drakies” as he refers to it, at the age of eight, from Grade 2.

“I saw my parents only three times a year until the end of Grade 9.”

By the time he was in his first year at UP, he was being asked to start choirs at schools. He also has the added distinction of being the first person at UP to graduate with a doctorate in choral conducting.

Although he initially planned on becoming an opera singer, Dr Barrett-Berg says he had an epiphany while singing in TUKS Camerata during a lunchtime concert.

“I realised this is what I want to do with my life. I love working with people. I don't want to be stuck in a rehearsal, practising my vocal lines all by myself.”

It’s a career choice that has reaped the benefits. He has presented workshops and conducted choirs at festivals around the world, including the UK, China, Russia, Belgium and Indonesia. He is particularly popular in the US. Recent residencies there include Missouri State University, Texas State University and the University of Washington.

Next year, on 11 April, he’ll be making his conducting debut at Carnegie Hall in New York in an all-South African music programme, which will probably feature 60% of his own compositions. Although such signs would seem to point to a new life in the US, Dr Barrett-Berg is leaving UP because he is emigrating with his family to Melbourne, Australia.

“It's actually much closer to the West Coast [of America],” he says, although that is not the motivation for the move.

“I’m going to be focusing on my international career. I have a lot of fantastic work lined up, and I will suss out the [Australian] culture when I get there. All my brothers live in Europe, Portugal, Scotland and the UK. We don't really have family left here.”

But he will miss TUKS Camerata, because he’s seen the benefits of a university choir first-hand.

“Camerata is so much more than just a choir. Having a community space for people, whether it's sport or a choir, is so important.  Studying doesn't necessarily make you happy or solve your problems or make you feel connected or wanted or needed or of value. Community stuff like a choir does that, and I saw that countless times – how the people in Camerata have learned so much holistically, about life and how to navigate this world. That is probably the most special thing I'll remember about being at UP.”

No one has been appointed as choral director of TUKS Camerata yet. There will be an interim conductor until an appointment is made next year.